Ringer 1.02 – She’s Ruining Everything

When we open Bridget’s still at the warehouse, and she leaves one of those awkward phone messages for Malcolm. You know the ones, when you’ve broken up with someone and said you shouldn’t talk any more, it’ll be easier to move on with your new secret identity that way, blah blah blah — but then you need to call them back because it turns out you killed a guy?

Wait, Professor Malcolm Ward? How did I miss that in the early eps? Well, it just makes Malcolm all the hotter (even if he teaches at a community college *coughs*). Bridget fills Malcolm’s voicemail with thoughts on how running from testifying against a stripper-dismembering reservation crime boss while imitating her sister who just presumably committed suicide obviously seemed like a swell idea, but it hasn’t been all it’s cracked up to be, what with the lying and the killing and the having to go to charity events.

After Bridget sensibly deletes her murder confession and various other details that would lead the FBI straight to her, she decides to redecorate the loft by smearing her assassin’s blood around. Well, no, she didn’t mean to leave a trail of blood, but doesn’t it add a nice splash of color? Red really pops! It would be great if someone else could be here to approve of this innovation, and luckily just then all the locks on the door start to unlock! But Bridget has a decorating crisis and decides to cover up the corpse with drop-cloths.

Gemma walks in with the act breaking “Oh my god!” But when we return from the commercials it turns out she’s just miffed that the contractors, instead of putting in the delightful sconces she has chosen, have fallen through a wall and knocked it down. We know that was Bridget and her dead friend, of course, but it makes a great excuse to fire some contractors with whom Gemma may or may not have had some hot meaningless sex (remember when she mentioned that in the pilot?).

Then it turns out that Gemma is embarrassed to learn that her nanny is a lesbian, which made for an awkward convo when she followed Bridget!Siobhan’s advice and accused the nanny of having the affair with Henry. Turns out the nanny has a girlfriend, which obviously means she would never cheat with Henry, ever, because everyone in this series with a partner remains utterly faithful to them. Okay, Henry knew this about the nanny — is Gemma not involved with the hiring of the help at all? Is she ever even at home? Quick, Gemma, what are your kids’ names? I thought so! Bridget offers the suggestion that perhaps Henry isn’t having an affair, and tries not to look daunted that Gemma is a billion times taller than her.

Back at the fabulous Manhattan apartment, Bridget bypasses the huge print of Siobhan and a bust that is perhaps also of Siobhan in the bedroom (I wouldn’t put it past Siobhan, really), and begins poking around in stuff in the bedroom to hide her gun. Man, that is one hard gun to hide, especially with it getting fired off all the time! Wait, no, she’s packing to make her escape. But Andrew her husband comes in and calls curfew, saying, “It’s not just you any more, Shiv. You’ve got to think for two now.” And how true, because Bridget needs a multi-personality planner to keep track of all of her and Siobhan’s to-do lists.

When Bridget wakes up, she finds a note from Andrew saying, “Thought it best if you two [ed. *snickers*] slept in. Call if Juliet comes home.” Oh yeah. How are you going to deal with not being pregnant if you keep sticking around, Bridget? All the more reason to escape! But on the way to yet another unsuccessful runaway attempt, Bridget finds Juliet who is coming down from some crazy high and wearing a very fetching silver mini-dress. As Juliet knocks over and breaks a no-doubt priceless vase, Bridget flashes back to a night when she was really knocking back the drinks nine years ago in Nevada and called Siobhan to come pick her up. But Juliet isn’t interested in Bridget!Siobhan’s help in the here and now, so Bridget wanders off to see what’s up with that rotting corpse in the loft.

You know what we need in this series? Some new vamp-y brunette with legs that won’t quit! And we get just that when we meet Andrew’s sexy partner Olivia, sitting in his seat at his desk, stretching out her gorgeous gams, and trilling out various business and finance catchphrases as though they make any sense whatsoever. Andrew and she have trade wry-looks and poshly-accented banter, arguing over her occupying his office, whether or not they should hire more people (Olivia thinks investors like fresh meat, ignoring the fact that we all know that investors like it when businesses fire the hell out of everyone), and how much Olivia thinks Andrew should sleep with her. Well, no, she doesn’t mention the last bit, but she totally disses Siobhan’s party-planning methods and sits in his chair when she hasn’t got permission, which reliably suggests she wants to get in his pants.

Bridget returns to the office to poke at her dead friend, the ski-masked hit man. She’s come prepared with gloves and bleach, and gets inspired when she spots a power saw, just right for carving up body parts. That’s the good thing about killing someone at a construction site; there are tools for you. Just when I’m pondering the irony that Bridget could soon be wanted for dismemberment just like Bodaway, Malcolm calls her from his office at the community college, just so he’ll look sexier surrounded by books. He thinks she should run like hell instead of hacking away at body parts and waiting for the police to find “Siobhan” with the gun Bridget stole. He offers to come get her or meet her somewhere else. “I’m here for you, friend, sponsor, whatever you need,” he says, and she kind of skips over the fact that he still wants to be her boyfriend and says she’ll leave soon.

But as Bridget’s leaving the corpse, to which she’s done absolutely nothing even though she has cleaning fluids and instruments of dismemberment with her, there’s someone surprising her at the door of the loft again. It’s Victor, who wants to come in so he can pee. Seriously. After pretending not to be there, Bridget is called out on the fact that Victor can totally see her shadow. When he asks for the bathroom and says, “What is it with cops and coffee?” Bridget just says, “I don’t know,” blankly, because clearly anything else would encourage Victor to talk about how often he has to go number one.

After Bridget tells Victor he better go to the doughnut shop across the street if he needs a bathroom, she disappears into a cab, and he stops in at the office to hear there’s nothing particularly interesting in the report about Siobhan and Andrew Martin. He’s your standard filthy rich business tycoon, she’s the socialite on the board of every charity, and her favorite movie is The Notebook, which Victor’s minion learned from being a creeper on Facebook (next time, Siobhan, don’t leave your interests public, or we’ll all know what crap taste you have in films). Victor tells his underling to research the loft, because there’s got to be a way he can exploit the Martins and find a lead to Bridget. Victor takes a long look at Bodaway’s photo in his case file, so we can remember why the hell we’re dealing with all of these wacky identity shenanigans in the first place.

An angry Gemma confronts petulant Henry about how they don’t spend time together or have sex, and Henry has a thousand stupid excuses why it’s completely fine they don’t do those things, but I’ll confess I’m distracted thinking how much I love Gemma’s nose. Her face has such great character, so let’s hope the actress never pulls a Jennifer Grey and has it unnecessarily fixed. When Henry denies yet again that he’s having an affair, Gemma pulls out her trump card of the hotel key the maid found in his jacket, dun dun duuuunnn!

Bridget gets to the bank so she can rob Siobhan’s account of every last penny, but when she can’t guess the pin on the bank card and the teller sends her to the manager, she’s nervous she’ll get caught. But the manager only wants to give her personal special treatment because Siobhan is one rich chiquita banana. Oh, and her checking account won’t yield much if she withdraws there, he tells her, but how about her super secret emergency account she had him open for her last month? Bridget asks coyly, “Does a shoe sale at Bergdorff’s constitute an emergency?”, the bank manager chortles at how much chicks like shoes, and Bridget zooms off in a cab with an envelope stuffed with moolah.

She’s on her way to the airport when Andrew reminds her about the cocktail party she’s hosting tonight, and Bridget lies that she’s just had her hair done (though take note, her hair looks much better than after she actually has it done). Oh, and hey, the party’s been moved to the loft, because Andrew felt after his reserved venue became unavailable that nothing would convince investors to open their wallets faster than the scent of dead body. By the time Andrew mentions the event planner is already on his way to the loft, Bridget decides she better deal with her corpse pal before jetting off to meet Malcolm.

At the loft, Bridget sends everyone out for lunch to give her some time to hide the stiff, and thank goodness she and the event planner chose a Titantic vibe for their theme, because there’s a great steamer trunk in the corner into which Bridget can dump Siobhan’s would-be assassin. Not that there’s anything ominous in decorating a loft containing a corpse so that the room resembles the ballroom of an ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank. Nope.

Bridget jaunts back home and texts Malcolm that she has to take care of a problem before she can go. She runs into Juliet, who is decked out for a night of tramping it up, and tries one of those “I had this friend” stories so she can warn Juliet against the dangers of partying to combat loneliness. Juliet looks like she might have been touched by this had not Siobhan clearly been a stone cold bitch to her in the past, so instead she says, “You’re hilarious, Siobhan. For a second it almost seemed like you gave a crap.”

Cue the Titanic themed party all set to go, and what the hell has Bridget done to her hair??? She’s got some kind of extensions in an I Dream of Jeannie ponytail atop her head, and the extensions are blonde blonde BLONDE while the hair on the crown of her head is practically brown. Ew. Also, she looks like she’s wearing a dress for some high school production of a Greek tragedy, which though it might present some shrewd comment on Bridget’s (and Siobhan’s) personal tragedies, I feel is merely a fashion tragedy.

Champagne flows freely as the party begins, and Bridget!Siobhan follows the party planner’s advice and talks only about things like tans and St. Barts. One guest says she went to the dermatologist Siobhan recommended, “but my Botox doesn’t look as natural as yours!” Bridget self-consciously prods her face and debates telling the woman that her secret is years of binge drinking followed by detox, rehab, and a life on the lam. Moments later Bridget spots a hefty gentleman noshing hors d’oeuvres on the steamer trunk, and shoos him away so he doesn’t end up sitting in a pile of dead assassin.

Andrew tells Bridget she looks lovely, but Olivia sidles up (she is a real sidler!), and simpers, “Do you mind if I steal your husband?” before dragging Andrew off so they can make their business pitch. Gemma turns up and says, “Olivia is the reason why women hate other women,” sadly not realizing that Siobhan boffing her husband is the reason why Gemma is going to spend some time hating other women. Gemma wouldn’t trust anyone else but Olivia with her money, though, because she’s a financial genius. The thought of Gemma’s healthy portfolio is no consolation to her, though, and she wisely downs lots of alcohol to help her get through the night (drunkenness always helps you at networking opportunities with potential clients for your architecture business, people).

Bridget ducks out into the hall, where she’s tempted to drink from some of those discarded champagne glasses. Henry’s stalker-y ways help out for once, because he surprises her in the alcove and distracts her from the alcohol by grabbing her when she starts to leave. He asks, “What did I do wrong?” and I actually feel a bit bad for Puffy Henry when Bridget spots a horrible cheap potted fern completely ruining the Titanic vibe — wait, no, she’s spotted assassin blood seeping out of the trunk. She rushes over to wipe up the blood, and Agent Machado turns up as the worst kind of party crasher, the sort who interrogates you about your missing sister and stuffs canapés into his mouth like an absolute plebe.

We hear a little about the building’s history from Victor, who then demands to know why Siobhan fired her contractors. “Call me crazy, but I think there’s a reason you’re keeping people out of this place.” Bridget!Siobhan points out the obvious, that there are at that moment over a hundred people wandering around the loft and showing off their St. Barts tans. Gemma’s shrieking draws them back inside, where they find her causing a huge scene, accusing Henry of cheating in front of everyone and possibly slapping some society type (who, let’s face it, probably had it coming). Bridget orders Machado to leave and stop harassing and trespassing, and Andrew is very impressed with Bridget!Siobhan’s bouncer skills.

Andrew and Olivia’s boring presentation is interrupted by a ringing phone, and after everyone checks their phones, people figure out that the trunk is ringing. Olivia stomps over to make it stop, but Bridget runs over to do it herself, gingerly fishing the ringing phone out of the dead guy’s pocket (but no one can see this at all, because they’re all pretending to be interested in Andrew and Olivia’s investment opportunities). Just as Bridget closes the trunk, some creepy Germanic guy gives her the evil eye.

As everyone leaves the party, Olivia gives Bridget!Siobhan a compli-sult (part compliment, part insult) on her pregnancy, saying, “nice move — some may see it as desperate, but in finance we call it strategic”. Bridget says getting pregnant is not a strategy (though she has several times now used it as a strategy to ward off Henry, to tell Andrew that Juliet shouldn’t live at home, to explain why she can’t drink without going into her addiction history, but no, no, it’s never to be used as a strategy). “It is if you need to hold onto your husband,” Olivia answers, and I really am putting good money on the fact that she is not yet banging Andrew, even if Andrew does little in-joke things with Olivia that make Bridget go all sadface.

Gemma shows up slightly less drunk with a cup of coffee, and says she still loves Henry, the poor sap (Gemma, not Henry). Bridget heads home with Andrew, who tells her he felt like she was on his side for the first time in a long while, “like I had the old Siobhan back,” and then says, “Don’t go away again,” which of course he means figuratively even though we know that Bridget is scheming to hightail it out of there as soon as she can. He puts his hand on her knee, and see, THIS is why men should get manicures, because his cuticles are just gorgeous.

Even though this is the first time Andrew has shared a bed with Bridget, she sticks to her escape plan, texting Malcolm that she’s on her way. But when she spots Juliet completely bugging out (“I took something at a bar and now I feel weird…some girl gave me a pill. I think it was orange.”), she stops to comfort her and Juliet cries out, “Don’t leave!” Which she means literally, actually, as Juliet doesn’t want her to leave the room while she throws up; but obviously it’s yet another symbolic injunction on Bridget to stay and take up the mantle of Siobhan’s relationships and responsibilities. And of course, while she’s there, to make good use of her awesome wardrobe and killer shoes.

Juliet’s bad experience makes Bridget flash back again to that bar scene in Nevada nine years ago. Siobhan went to the bar answering Bridget’s cry for help (“I left a date because I thought you were in trouble”), but it turns out Bridget mostly wanted Siobhan to pay her bar tab. Bridget claims she’s sorry, but Siobhan corrects her that she’s selfish, and slaps cash down on the table for the bar tab and a ride home before flouncing out. Back in the present, Bridget tells Juliet, “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere,” (unlike certain jerkwad sisters, am I right??) and holds her. Andrew spots them together, and it is like all his Christmases have come at once, seeing his daughter and wife get along for two minutes so he can get some freaking sleep for once.

The next time Bridget calls Malcolm, instead of formulating more escape plans she tells him, “Hey, it’s me. My bag’s packed, I have the money, I’m all set to go, but I can’t. For the first time in my life, I’m not the one leaning on people. People need Siobhan to stay and I need to stay here for Siobhan. I hope you understand.” Malcolm listens to this crazy decision while a scary Land Rover pulls right up to him and high-beams his eyes. Holy guacamole, it’s Bodaway and his thugs, and if it weren’t for Malcolm’s student rushing to catch him in the garage, they would so have killed him dead!

Eiffel Tower time, so we’re back in Paris, France, to find Siobhan looking outrageously awesome with her chic hat, beautiful silk scarf, Chanel bag, and gorgeous leather trench coat. She goes to withdraw money from her special super secret emergency account and heeeyyy, guess what, that account was closed in Manhattan earlier! I wonder what Bridget did with all that cash money, by the way? But there’s no time for that, because Siobhan makes a call, saying, “She’s ruining everything,” and we have episode title! “It has to get done,” she tells whoever is on the other line. “Sooner rather than later.”

Bridget, blithely oblivious to the horrible fate Siobhan has planned for her, takes a little trip back to the loft so she can finally, finally hack up that body in the trunk. But wait, the body has disappeared! And so has the blood! And Bridget isn’t enough of a society maven to understand exactly to whom she should send the thank-you note! Dun dun duuunnnn!

Of course, it’s my new favorite show because, hello, Ioan Gruffudd. This episode only gave us undone bowtie and open collar, but it’s something.

And I am SO GLAD you noticed the awful extensions in the party scene! My kid and I were SO BOTHERED by those, you have no idea.

Every time Bridget does something foolish about self-defense or dead bodies we’re all “Buffy, what is WRONG with you? You know better than that!”

I’m crossing my fingers that you’re right about Olivia not yet banging Andrew, because I WANT to like Andrew, I really do, even though he has occasional moments that make it very difficult for me, like “Do as you’re told for once.” ARGH.

Still. There is Ioan with his lovely face and his sexy sexy accent and his sharp suits, and… they’ll have to make it VERY stupid for me to quit watching.

Janey Ford

He’s a real asset to the show, for sure. *nods vigorously* We’ll simply have to count ourselves lucky that we got half-naked Ioan in the Pilot to sustain us, and hope for more!

It’s very hard to tell with this show, regarding Olivia and Andrew!I really am willing to place bets re: their non-banging status. But maybe they’re on their way out of the affair and that’s why it’s snippy or “why-are-you-in-my-office”-y sometimes. We’ll learn more soon, and meanwhile a THOUSAND other questions will have been posed! \o/

Is it spoilery to say that I have serious reservations about Olivia’s idea of what’s appropriate daytime office wear?

Brunettepet

Bridget’s party outfit and hair-do were laughably ugly and her response to compliments shows what a fine actress SMG is!

I was hoping that Bridget had given Andrew a post-party, pre-running off with my sponsor, tumble, and was sorely disappointed that she was in jammies when she slipped out of bed.

Rikibeth

While I was pulling for the Bridget/Andrew shagfest as well, I appreciated the PJs; it’s SO RARE to see a show that shows sexualized MALE bodies without having female bodies that are even more so. I think that really speaks to SMG being the executive producer as well as the lead.

@Brunettepet, I had hoped for the same thing! But with these two, sleeping together is practically kink-ilicious, given how most of their charged moments seem to happen with them standing a meaningful half-foot apart.

And @Rikibeth, I love that SMG has that executive producer credit; I’m definitely attributing how well the show is going so far in part to her involvement on the production as well as the acting side. Now if only I didn’t worry that she picked out 1.03’s horrible spangled top for Siobhan in that Paris bar…

Christo

Thanks for writing up your recaps of this show. You’re very funny.

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